Monthly Archives: March 2014

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To this day, I have nightmares about arbitrary high school assignments that I am failing to finish on time. You’d think, after nine years, that my subconscious would understand that I graduated high school; that my nightmares should now be about the completion of my novels dragging out way past some crucial publishing deadline (half good dream;-) Nonetheless, homework dreams cling to my brain, just like they used to during school vacations. They want me to wake up and panic. The truly irritating thing is that panic still precedes relief. I ask my dream-self: “Why must you care? Why can’t you let the assignments be late so I can relax?” Dream-self says: “I am teenage you and I wrote ‘Deadline Drama’ and I live forever in your nerdy poem, mmwaa ha ha ha…”

I would like to preface this portal by pointing out that I myself am an optimist. Pessimists argue we would spare ourselves disappointment if we kept our hopes low. I’ve never been able to do that, and I don’t believe it would do me any good. I think I would have given up long ago in my writing career if I couldn’t get excited about my next “maybes”. Maybe my next idea will turn out to be a great novel; or maybe this next person I query will want to read my book, maybe they will be THE ONE! (Finding the right people to love my books is a lot like match-making; way harder than finding my husband). Anticipation in itself keeps me going. Given my perspective, you may choose to believe my sixteen-year-old self was mocking pessimists in this filk of South Pacific’s “Cock-Eyed Optimist”. In all honesty, I was rather fond of Eeyore the donkey and Puddleglum the Marshwiggle. I thought it only fair that they have their own version of the song: